Forced into Hijab: a response to Katharine Quarmby

By Houriya | Published: May 15, 2009

(This article of mine was originally published in First Draft, the Prospect Magazine blog, 18 March 2009)

In Britain, freedom of consciousness and liberalism thrive. Women can choose to wear the hijab (headscarf) or not, and so Katharine Quarmby can ponder at will its aesthetic and fashion implications. In Iran, however, such a luxury is unimaginable. A woman’s worth and modesty is dictated by misogynist Islamist clerics who force women to wear the hijab and throw feminists in jail for daring to protest for equal human rights.

Unfortunately, some do not appreciate the freedoms held in Britain. In a recent talk I attended, Alastair Crooke, a former MI6 agent, labels what we see in Iran as ‘Muslim values’, praising Iran’s leaders for using their ‘creative imaginative faculties’ to construct a society based on collective ‘Islamic’ norms. Most Iranian women recognise this as Khomeini’s politicisation of religion. Crooke rejected the idea that the Iranian regime abuses a woman’s human rights, as these are a ‘Western’ construct – Christian, capitalist and rooted in individualism.

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Posted in Democracy, Fashion, Human Rights, Islamism, Secularism | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Nothing British about the BNP

By Shikwa | Published: May 15, 2009

Tim Montgomerie of ConservativeHome has launched an excellent campaign this morning challenging the BNP on the ‘Nothing British’ website.

There’s more over at the Telegraph.

Posted in Anti Fascism, Democracy | 2 Comments

Al-Qa’ida Cool

By Retired | Published: May 14, 2009

Jamie Bartlett, leader of Demos’s violent radicalism project “From Threat To Opportunity”, has a piece in Prospect Magazine this month. In it he makes some interesting observations:

[M]embers of terrorist cells tend to be young men with little religious knowledge other than a few cut-and-paste lines from the rockstars of jihadi literature, like radical Egyptian cleric Sayed Qutb. In comparison to such founding fathers of modern Islamic terrorism, this generation has suffered no serious repression.

He also argues, on the back of research from McGill University, that:

Ultimately it is not the ideas of al Qaeda that need dismantling; it is the idea of al Qaeda. This is tough. As has been proved by counterproductive anti-drug warnings, anything government proscribes can become more exciting for young people. The key is to strip al Qaeda of its mystique, and show that the average day of an Islamic extremist is more like that of a petty criminal than a secret agent. (This happens to be true: seven out of ten European militants in al Qaeda training camps return home because of tough training and being treated like skivvies.)

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Posted in Terrorism | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Quilliam director attacked

By Shikwa | Published: May 14, 2009
Tayyab Muqeem sitting pretty in Pakistan

Tayyab Muqeem sitting pretty in Pakistan

Maajid Nawaz, director of the Quilliam Foundation has been attacked in Pakistan by a British member of the Islamist group Hizb ut Tahrir – an organisation to which Nawaz previously belonged. Nawaz is currently touring Pakistan as part of an anti-extremist initiative on a trip that will take him to over 30 universities.

He’s clearly riled a few of his ex-associaties.

Quilliam says the attacker – identified as Tayyab Muqeem (a Hizb member from Stoke) – had to physically restrained and warned Maajid:

‘this is only a slap compared with what I am going to do to you’.

Muqeem runs a company in Pakistan called ‘University Connections’ which helps local students study abroad – including at British universities. According to his biography he has provided:

training to Members of Parliament, Councillors and various government officials on community development.

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Posted in Islamism | 234 Comments

FOSIS’s Annual Conference

By Retired | Published: May 14, 2009

I recently blogged about the individuals Queen Mary’s Islamic Society has been inviting to address its members. At the end of the piece, I suggested that the NUS or FOSIS, the Federation Of Student Islamic Societies, should encourage the Islamic Society to invite speakers who condemned all forms of terrorism, did not spread outlandish conspiracy theories and promote community cohesion.

David T, of Harry’s Place, responded in sceptical terms:

But FOSIS is hardly going to lay down the law to QMUL’s ISOC, considering they lay on events with similarly vicious speakers.

Now, there are people who condemn FOSIS for its close links to the Muslim Brotherhood and because it is affiliated to the MCB, who don’t exactly have the best reputation at the moment.

And there are those who point to FOSIS’s support for overturning the NUS ban on Hizb ut-Tahrir.

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Posted in Anti Fascism, Antisemitism | Tagged | Comments closed

Welcome to the Spittoon

By Faisal | Published: May 10, 2009

A spittoon is a metal bowl-shaped vessel, often with a funnel-shaped cover, into which tobacco chewers periodically spit. The chewing of tobacco is an especially discursive habit of mind and body which tends to produce copious quantities of both expectorated saliva and the exchange of ideas. The spittoon as the receptacle for “gob” and as a symbol of fomenting conversation is, we think, an appropriate euphemism for this blog.

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